Maryland Independent by NANCY BROMLEY McCONATY
Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative officials are launching a project to build what they say will be a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly facility in Hughesville that will replace the company’s aging office in White Plains.
SMECO officials obtained a special exception last week from the Charles County Board of Zoning and Appeals to build a new facility on about 20 acres of a 145-acre parcel in Hughesville that was once eyed for the home of the Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf. The James Farm tract is large enough for the electric co-op to grow and will provide enough room to hide the campus from surrounding properties, said Tom Russell, SMECO’s environmental affairs and property rights manager.
‘‘There’s a wonderful tree buffer around the property,” he said in an interview Tuesday. ‘‘I’m not sure that the building will even be visible from Route 5. We want to be tucked away back there.”
The White Plains facility, which was built in the mid-1960s, is too small for the company’s expanding operations and its location at the intersection of U.S. 301 and DeMarr Road is becoming a safety hazard to crews who are constantly entering and exiting the site, Russell said. No other locations that would fit the company’s needs were found in the area, he said.
‘‘We looked at the location in White Plains and realized there were some real safety issues there,” he said. ‘‘The intersection is misaligned and it poses a terrible problem for our trucks to get in and out of the facility. It’s a tough intersection.”
The White Plains building will be sold once the new facility is opened by the end of 2010, Russell said, adding that the 250 employees, including engineers and surveyors, will be transferred to the Hughesville site.
‘‘People are literally standing; there’s no room for employees at the White Plains building,” he said. ‘‘They’re boxed in. That 10-acre facility is no longer big enough for us to perform the functions that we need to do.”
White Plains serves as the district regional office for Charles and Prince George’s counties. The cooperative also has offices in Prince Frederick in Calvert County and Leonardtown in St. Mary’s County, said Tom Dennison, the company’s spokesman.
The White Plains office takes care of the day-to-day activities of the company, including billing and residential and commercial construction projects, Russell said.
The new one-story 120,000- to 150,000-square-foot facility and campus will house offices, including the company’s operations and call center that are activated during emergencies that cause power outages, Russell said. The building will be constructed to withstand the force of a Category 2 hurricane, he said.
The campus will also provide a lot of space to store equipment and materials, Russell said.
‘‘This will become the linchpin in our operation,” he said. ‘‘It will be the nerve center. It will be the pulse to control emergency situations. Now it’s a tough job in tough working conditions.”
‘‘For the first time we’ll have a staging area for emergencies,” Dennison said. ‘‘We’ll have space for our crews to mobilize.”
The operation center is now located in the company’s three-story headquarters building on Burnt Store Road in Hughesville and the call center is housed in another building on the campus.
The headquarters’ building will remain after the new facility opens, but the company’s oldest building located near the intersection of Leonardtown Road and Route 231 will close, Russell said.
An old house that the company currently uses in the same vicinity will also be vacated once the new facility is open, Russell said.
The new building will be designed to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver standard, Russell said, adding that the company will also include a geothermal heating and air conditioning system in the design.
Other ‘‘green” standards that will be incorporated into the project include porous concrete rather than asphalt to soak up rain water on the site, skylights and rain gardens.
The site will not need a stormwater management pond because of the environmental features that will be designed for the project, Russell said.
‘‘We hope to be a model for green construction in the county,” he said. ‘‘This is a great opportunity to show people how conservation works.”
The project will include the creation of a public nature trail that will lead from the property to Route 231, Russell said.
The project was endorsed by the Preserve Hughesville group that formed several years ago to fight the construction of a baseball stadium in the village. Russell said that SMECO officials met several times with the group during the last few months to discuss the project.
‘‘SMECO is part of Hughesville and it has been a good neighbor for a long time,” Donna Cave, chairwoman of Preserve Hughesville, said Tuesday. ‘‘This is a good, environmentally smart project, and it’s something that we wish other builders in the county would do. I believe that the company has our best interests at heart.”
‘‘I’m all for it,” said Pauleen Brewer, Preserve Hughesville member. ‘‘The company is going above and beyond to reach the silver LEED certification. That’s awesome. SMECO has been a good neighbor, and based on that trust, I believe that this will be a good thing for Hughesville.”
The cooperative’s 150,000 electric customers will become aware of the benefits of the project as soon as the facility opens, Russell said.
‘‘This facility will provide our customers enhanced service; that’s what our goal is all about,” he said. ‘‘It will be a state-of-the-art system that is more efficient and technically savvy.”
‘‘This facility will give us a platform to deliver better customer service and it will give us room to grow,” Dennison said.
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What is LEED?
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria.
LEED is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
